The present invention relates generally to a system for monitoring and reporting the viewing of television programs, and more particularly to an apparatus for use with a conventional television receiver for monitoring the operation of the receiver without direct electrical connection to the circuitry thereof.
Several media research organizations such as Neilsen Media Research, Inc., Statistical Research Inc., and Arbitron Corporation, provide popularity ratings of television programs on a local and national basis based on the viewing habits of a representative sample of viewers. This rating information is valuable to advertisers since it enables them to select programs and broadcast times which are most effective for selling their product.
Typically, program viewing information has been collected from viewers by the media research organizations either by having the viewer complete a reporting form identifying programs watched on a 24 hours basis, which form would be mailed in every week, or by connecting a recording apparatus to the viewer's television receiver, which apparatus would regularly report the viewer's viewing habits to a central office. The use of a reporting form often proved to be burdensome to the viewer, causing the viewer to miss making entries or to make wrong entries. The use of apparatus connected to the viewer's receiver also often proved burdensome, since prior apparatus designed for this purpose required direct electrical connection to, and often modification of, the circuitry of the receiver. Furthermore, the apparatus was also undesirably expensive to install because the direct electrical connection required a technician to travel to the user's premises.
The present invention avoids these deficiencies by providing a monitoring and reporting apparatus which monitors on a real time basis the program viewed on a television receiver without any direct electrical connection to the receiver. This viewing information, including the channel and/or program, the time and date of viewing, and a viewer ID number is then sent by telephone line to a central office for processing.
Direct electrical connection to the television receiver is avoided through the use of a radio frequency (RF) probe, which is tuned to the 45 MHZ intermediate frequency (IF) universally used in television receivers. The RF probe is attached to the outside surface of the receiver cabinet at a location which is in sufficiently close proximity to the IF amplifier portion of the receiver circuitry to enable the probe to pick-up the IF signal for processing. From that signal demodulation and decoding circuitry within the monitoring apparatus derives the channel and/or program identification.
In the United States the channel and/or program information is provided during the vertical blanking interval (VBI) on line 21 of the composite video signal, fields 1 and 2, two bytes per field, in accordance with standard 608 of the Electronics Industries Association (EIA). In further accordance with EIA Standard 608, this transmission channel also serves to convey ASCII format closed captioning, program data and rating information.
The channel and/or program viewing information is stored along with the date, time and user identification within an internal memory. The stored information is transmitted from the internal memory at regular intervals to a central monitoring facility wherein it is analyzed to develop program rating information.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a new and improved system for monitoring and reporting the viewing of television programming.
It is a more specific object of the present invention to provide a system for monitoring and reporting television viewing information which does not require input from the viewer or a direct electrical connection to the television receiver.
It is a still more specific object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which automatically identifies and stores for later transmission to a media research organization a particular channel and/or program being viewed by a television receiver without a direct electrical connection to the receiver.